s 
MEAT INSPECTION AND ACTINOMYCOSIS. 9 
nothing but a slight scar left of it and the animal enjoys to¬ 
day, two years after the inoculation, the best of health. 
From these experiments, which were skillfully performed 
and with the earnest desire to inform myself of the transmissi- 
bility or nontransmissibility of actinomycosis, I can frankly 
say that I have formed the firm opinion that it is difficult and 
at most times impossible to artificially produce true actin¬ 
omycosis by inoculation from animal to animal, and that I 
cannot thus see how the natural propagation of the disease 
can possibly take place by intertransmission of animals, as 
advocated by Dr. Williams. This conclusion is the more un¬ 
fortunate, as he delights in comparing actinomycosis with 
tuberculosis and glanders, which diseases radically differ from 
actinomycosis, in at least two points, namely : in the readiness 
to cultivate the bacilli, and in the result of experimental in¬ 
oculation, which is so easily attained as to be useful for con¬ 
trolling a diagnosis. 
But as critics may demand further evidence, it may be 
well to offer more cases of unsuccessful inoculation, and these 
are given in abundance by European experimenters. In fact 
they are so numerous that I must refrain from enumerating 
them here and can only refer to the latest contributions on 
actinomycosis by Prof. Bostrom in Ziegler’s Beitrage zur 
pathologischen anatomie (neunter Band, 1891), which is so 
far the most complete treatise on this question. 
Considering the matter as a whole from what has been 
published about actinomycosis during the last year, it appears 
that all our great authorities are becoming more and more of 
the opinion that actinomycosis is not a malignant disease. 
This view was very apparent at the last meeting of the Inter¬ 
national Congress of Hygiene in London, in August, 1891, 
and I shall shortly quote what some of these men had to say 
there about actinomycosis. 
The Lancet , London, August 22, 1891, Section III—“ Rela¬ 
tion of diseases of animals to those of man.” Actinomycosis , 
Prof. Crookshank. * * * With regard to intercommunica¬ 
bility of the disease between different species of animals, 
including man, he had failed to find any evidence in support 
/ 
